Phillipsburg High School tuition rates to rise 7.7 percent in 2014-15

Phillipsburg school officials say they’re doing all they can to help districts who send students to Phillipsburg High School shoulder rising tuition costs.

The new rate for high school students without any special needs is $14,500, up 7.7 percent from $13,464 in the 2013-14 school year, Business Administrator William Bauer said. He said Phillipsburg officials could have raised the rate to roughly $15,470, but they decided not to.

Phillipsburg School Board President Kevin DeGerolamo said district officials are doing everything they can to make sure sending schools don’t have to resort to major staff cuts. The sending districts, however, should look at all their staffing and programming for possible adjustments, he said.

“Phillipsburg has done our due diligence in trying to come up with a tuition number that is both fair to the taxpayers of Phillipsburg but at the same time not hurting the sending districts,” DeGerolamo said. “The Phillipsburg district can’t freeze these tuition rates.”

The school board on Monday approved the rate for the upcoming school year by a 9-1 vote, with Greenwich Township representative Kevin Bayne dissenting. Lopatcong Township representative Bill Taggart abstained, and board member Rosemarie Person was absent.

Bayne said he tries to work in harmony with the rest of the school board and recognizes Phillipsburg officials have the right to raise the tuition rate. But he said he’s mindful of Greenwich’s financial position.

“I know that the constituents of that sending district are not in favor of an increase of more than $1,000 from the previous year,” Bayne said. “That’s who I represent, and that’s why I chose to vote ‘no’ on it."

New Jersey gave so-called former Abbott districts, the 31 poorest in the state, permission to increase tuition rates for sending districts by 20 percent annually for five years, Bauer said. Before the state eliminated the Abbott designation, the five sending districts paid a discounted tuition price compared to the rest of the state.

Bauer said Phillipsburg could have charged the full 100 percent tuition rate this school year. In that case, sending districts would have paid $14,093 per Phillipsburg High School student instead of the current $13,464, he said. Next year’s rates equate to a more than $900 subsidy, Bauer said.

Greenwich ballot vote

Bayne said Greenwich’s financial problems aren’t Phillipsburg’s “fault per se,” but he couldn’t vote for the tuition increase in light of them. The 2 percent cap on property tax revenue increases approved by Gov. Chris Christie in July 2010 creates a budget shortfall as Greenwich’s school district struggles to keep up with the rising tuition, Bayne said.

The tax levy generates about $150,000 in revenue each year, he said. The tuition costs for Greenwich’s roughly 360 high school students will go up by about $370,000 for the 2014-15 school year, creating a roughly $220,000 deficit, he said.

“The state hasn’t given any of these sending districts any type of exemptions for these tuition increases,” Bayne said. “That hasn’t been addressed.”

The school district is seeking county approval to ask for voter permission at the April school board election to exceed the 2 percent cap, he said. Without it, officials will likely have to cut teachers to balance the budget, Bayne said.

Lopatcong cutting faculty

Taggart, the Lopatcong Township School Board president, abstained because the tuition rates included figures for students other than the high school. The district has prepared for the tuition increases by socking away $400,000 in reserves for the past three or four years, he said. That translates to four or five teachers officials didn’t have to lay off, he said.

That’s come to an end. Lopatcong will lose four teachers in the 2014-15 school year; two are retiring and the other two will be laid off, Taggart said. The district has enough in reserves to cover the 2014-15 tuition, but officials won’t know until this summer whether they’ll be able to replenish the fund.

An increase in health care costs and in the number of Lopatcong students attending Phillipsburg have contributed to a need for the cuts, he said.

“It’s not just the tuition itself. It’s also the additional number of students that we will be sending to P'burg,” Taggart said.